Wayne County readers surprised about diversion of their zoo tax dollars

Jan. 21, 2013

Visitors at the Detroit Zoo's Arctic Ring of Life marvel at a polar bear swimming over their heads. Some communities have withheld tax money from the zoo and say they might do the same with taxes for the DIA. / Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press

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Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Some Free Press readers from Wayne County said today they were surprised to learn that not all of the revenue raised by the zoo millage tax approved by voters in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties in 2008 was going to the Detroit Zoo.

“We voted for an additional tax that would go to the zoo — not to our city or any other city in the area,” said Leonard Piestrak, 67, and a 35-year resident of Woodhaven.

A story in the Free Press today explains how small amounts of the tax revenue from the 0.1-mill zoo tax is being diverted by Downtown Development Authorities in Wayne County. The DDAs, are allowed to capture some of the property-tax revenue within specified areas in such cities as Belleville, Dearborn, Grosse Pointe Park and Woodhaven but it’s unclear whether that applies to the zoo tax.

Officials connected with the DDAs, including many Wayne County mayors, said they believed that similar captures should be allowed for money from the new arts tax that voters in the tri-county area approved in November to support the Detroit Institute of Arts.

That didn’t sit well with Mick Green, 61, of Livonia.

“We naively believed the tax increases were solely intended for the zoo and now the DIA. This needs to be transparent (in elections) or voters will say no to these types of initiatives proposed in the future,” Green said.

Also chiming in as opposing the diversions of zoo tax revenue were readers from Macomb and Oakland counties, where no captures of the zoo tax have occurred, according to Detroit Zoo officials.